col lamb wrote:
From on your own Youtube channel you have exactly the same type of "movie", a style that has been made many thousands of times, creative...no, good camerawork....no, interesting....no, its just a series of badly shot clips put together with annoying music.

Hmmmm. I was hoping for a justification for the "landscape film" genre, rather than an attack on other people's film making abilities!

I was very careful when I made my initial post in this thread as I was aware it was contentious. I simply wanted to open the debate into something I find myself wondering about as I see a trend for these sort of "landscapey" films, due, as I suggest to the popularity of DSLRs as videomaking machines. I was very careful to generalise as I was questioning the validity of the "genre" rather than criticising any particular film.
When Chris joined the debate he did the same.

If you thought this was a personal attack, I have clearly failed in my aim and you must have felt so as you seem to have made a very specific attack on one of Chris's films. Chris has already pointed out that this was one of his earlier ones, but nevertheless some of your criticism of it is highly subjective.

Creative - there is some very effective cutting to music, there is experimentation with crash zooms,
good camerawork - there are certainly attempts at interesting shots - the crash zooms again, the moving shots from cars, the lights against the night
Interesting shots - we have a mixture of places, faces and some action. Well, they're interesting to me

Whether or not you "like" these and whether or not you find them interesting is to a large extent subjective, but it is evident that the maker has tried to put the piece together with some thought and effort. In other words there is (to my mind) far more to a film like this than what appears (to my eyes and ears) to be a collection of pretty pictures that I'm forced to watch at someone else's pace.

Furthermore it doesn't really bear comparson to "landscape" films as it shows life, people and action. It is something that would not come across just as well or possibly better in a series of stills.

There is some superb work being produced in audio visual these days and if you take the IAC's Peter Coles competition as just one example you will find documentaries on all manner of subjects, some serious, some light hearted and many thought provoking. There are also impressionistic sequences that visually interpret a piece of music. The software available to AV workers is similar to video editing programmes and becoming increasingly sophisticated. As a creative activity AV is very popular and I wish that a selection of the best sequences from the Friday night AV show at BIAFF could be included in the IAC's library.

Couldn't resist a comment on the Col Lamb/Chrisbitz challenge. Watched both films through and thought both good for different reasons. Col Lambs' came out as good for simply being 'done in a day' and while the 'titles' issue has been well and truly 'done' have to say 'well done'.
The problem with such projects, in my view, is lighting. To attempt such a thing in the same place on the same day risks repetition. I am also interested in nature in all its' glory and the shortcomings I have found is that from a film point of view such things do not alter appreciably during a single days' light and in the same location. When I have attempted films along these lines I have had to give it a rest and go back to it later, on a different day and perhaps a different week or month, winter, as with the rest of the seasons, does not take place in a day.
I'm just putting the finishing touches to a film titled 'Sunset' which will eventually run out at just over 5mins. It has taken a few months over 3yrs. to collect sufficient footage to allow me to get this far, despite the fact that I've been nurturing the idea since buying my first camcorder in 2007!
Chrisbitz film was quite different in my view, fast paced and very busy as Hollywood must be, set to a thumping sound-track it too was (what I call) a good 'collage' film.
Got to say that I am not a fan of AV purely because I see the style as far too limited when compared to film, but it might be my imagination which is limited as I must also say that I have seen one or two very good ones, perhaps that's the problem, I've seen many good films, but only one or two good AVs despite being subjected to quite a few over the past 7yrs. Wendy Lambs' film of the same subject was, for a first film, very good too, but suspect more than just a few words of help from her husband.